Here’s someone who didn’t know Charles from Riverdale: Iconic and accomplished film director Todd Haynes, who cast the actor in his extremely buzzy new film May December.
In the film, Charles plays Joe, the husband of Gracie (Julianne Moore) who first had a relationship with her when he was 13 and she was 36. It sounds like it’s gonna be a huge awards contender, and Todd recently revealed that Charles himself went to extremes to take on the role.
“I’m so grateful Charles Melton came into our consciousness,” the director recently told Vulture, before explaining that he “didn’t know” the actor from Riverdale and that his physical appearance was “almost a deterrent” from casting him.
“I felt that Joe would be a good-looking man, but Charles has that sort of hunkiness and pinup quality that wasn’t necessarily how I pictured him.”
Todd then went on to explain that Charles gained “35, 40 pounds” to play the role and “change his chiseled self into something more familiar: a suburban man in this place.”
“There’s such remarkable physicality in the choices he made as an actor. A friend of mine saw a cut of it, and he said, ‘Charles moves like a child and an old man, a combination of the two’ — which makes so much sense given his predicament.”
You can read the entire interview here.